Sept 29 (but post is from last week)

It has been awhile and I’m sorry about that I wrote this a week ago but I didn’t get to send it to mom to post it before I had to go on a weeklong fieldtrip. So I am uploading this without having someone filter it first because now mom is at the Fryeburg Fair. So there is going to be a lot of bad grammar and spelling.

Well on Tuesdays we have hot breakfast and it starts at 7:30 so that is kind of early. But anyway it was pancake breakfast and I was like yeah I think I’ll get up for  it. So at 8:15 I rolled out of bed and slid down the stairs to the dining room and saw bowls of whipped cream, chocolate chips, syrup, and berries. It looked so good. There was also orange wedges but I didn’t eat those because its too hard to eat those in the morning so I sat down at the table with Adam (ccsp employee) and emma (the cook) to eat. Everyone else was finishing up and the pancakes were cold but I was determined to enjoy my breakfast. But last week I made the mistake of saying the comment that breakfast is so much work to eat because it requires so much work to prepare it and cut it up. That time of the day I just don’t have the ambition to do that. So as I was struggling through getting my pancakes ready emma was making fun of me and said “here let me get that for you. It’s just too much to expect you to do that at such a wee hour.” So she cut up my pancakes an put the whip cream and chocolate chips on it for me it was so good and then she poured my orange juice for me it was the best. Then as I continued to eat and got to the bottom pancake where there wasn’t any syrup or cream so without asking she knew from somewhere deep inside her that I needed more on it so she did that for me too.

It’s still cold here but worming up! I remember when I used to be able to spread butter on my bread… but I haven’t done that since I’ve been here. It’s also wicked hard to shave.. I couldn’t bring my electric razor with me because of the electricity so I had to bring hand ones… well let me tell you it’s pretty hard to teach a cat new tricks. Every time I attempt to shave I end up miss entire huge spots on my face. Its wicked frustrating and I feel like I’m going to slit my own throat on accident.

Reading week:

                So reading week is when you are expected to do all the reading required for the semester so it had been a wicked lame week here at the nunnery. But to spice things up Lisa (funny kiwi women who lives at the convent with us) asked a few of us to eat lunch at her work. She works at the Kaikoura Whale Watch as the marketing manager and her office is right on the beach it’s a wicked cool building with a café, patio, volleyball court, and cool painted art walls. During lunch Monica (messiah student) put her hand in a huge pile of bid crap. After lunch she let me go ask her some qustions and see her cubical it was wicked fun and I got to see what she does. So im hoping that I can pop in again sometime because this week she had models come in to take pictures on the boat so she is pretty legit.

                So as you can imagine, the longer we read the more anxious we get to do something fun. Last night the girls stole rob steve and I’s boxers while we were out and then when we woke up we didn’t have any clean pairs to put on so I sucked it up and put the same pair I took off back on and went down to breakfast only to find our boxers were on something we call the napkin tree (a pole in the dining room that holds our napkins in special spots) so where the napkins where supposed to be our boxers where there instead. I mean it’s kind of gross because you are putting our boxers where we put our napkins that we use to eat?? So joke on the girls! HA buut anyway shortly after waking up the girls left to go into town and us boys where left at the convent alone… so we stole all there bras (it was pretty hard figuring out if it was a bra, underwear, bathing suit, or what it was) and climbed down the fire escape in our room and ran out back to the biggest tree in the yard. As you guessed rob and I climbed to the top of the tree with the bag of bras and continue to ping them around the top of the tree. After the tree was fully decorated we locked our bedroom door and biked into town to do our laundry.

                Maybe you’re wondering why im going to a laundromat. Well we can’t do laundry here at the nun house unless we do it by hand… which as far as ive seen looks like a lot of work. So no I have not done it by hand yet. Also Drew’s (kiwi kid who I talked about last time) mom owns it so I feel good supporting them and I’m too lazy and cold to do it by hand.

                In town Seafest is going on its like Lincoln homecoming. So there are tons of people in town and old cars. So there was a market in town that is like the trash and treasure sale in presquile people selling new stuff, used stuff, old stuff, food stuff, and crapy stuff. So we found this guy selling lasers and they were wicked cool but 20 bucks. So it was good deal but we needed a better deal. So we asked him and got him to go down to 18. Deal made (thanks Gram and Gramp). They are green and annoy the girls so they were a good purchase. I also got a hellokitty necklace that I bought from a really cute little kiwi kid. We had fish and chips on the beach and it was a great day in town not much to tell about it though.

                Then we biked back to the convent and found on the edge of the road a dead hare that was wicked big. Prob around 15 pounds and lonnnng. It was a fresh kill so I threw it over my back with my laundry and rode proudly back to the convent with my finds of the day. We found the girls with a huge 16 foot 2x4 trying to pick their bras out of the tree and a few of them were climbing with fishing poles trying to nock them down… just take a minute to envision it.          So being nice guys we went and helped them get them down and told them sternly “mess with the bull you get the horns” later that day I cleaned the rabbit up and now the pelt is drying out back of the convent. I named the rabbit peter.

Early this week:

*Warning contains my opinion read at your discretion*

                We went to a bird enclosure to volunteer for the department of conservation with our friend Bret (man who took us on peninsula walk) we had to reset weasel trap and set out poisons while others where fixing stairs and hauling gravel. The enclosure is to help reintroduce a bird that right now lives in the mountains in colonies of around 5000 birds in each colony. The birds can’t fly during the day or something and they can’t deal with any kind of predator so they need a lot of protection against weasels mice and other things that can eat them or their eggs. So they have a predator proof fenced in area that was real big and had two fences one on the inside and one on the outside and between the two fences are sheep to keep down the grass. In the middle of the enclosure is a speaker system that plays the sound of a bird colony over huge speakers to attract the birds. They also have planted special plants and hauled in special gravel that the birds prefer. They also have ramps for the birds to climb up so that they can take off easily. Each day they helicopter down 5 birds from the mountains to this colony. Last year they had one breading pair of birds and expect them to return back to the colony this year. They picked this spot because they thought it would be a nice place to have a colony of these birds and it has nice up drafts that the birds need to take off and fly with. I personally think this is odd to try to relocate a bird that lives in the mountains down to a different area?

                But anyway we went and set out bait and found so many snails. HUGE snails as big as grapes. Me and rob finished our job and were waiting for everyone else (for about an hour) and took these huge snails and put like 50 of them all over our van. We covered it, it was wicked gross. Also while we were working we found a dead bird. So put that in the car also. Anyway we were finishing and a unnamed person came over and I was showing them how you could squeeze the snail and it would squirt out of the shell and its eyes would pop out.  Well this person was modified and said a bunch of ridiculous living things are living remarks and I was pretty much going to burn down in you know where. I then threw my last snail I had on top of a huge concrete pillar and that was almost the straw that broke the camels back.

But the real straw that broke the camels back was when we went to down to get into the vans. This unnamed person saw all of the snails and was mortified so some of the girls helped her pick the snails off with her. But then her friend who she brought along got in the passenger side door and saw the dead bird we put in the van. He looked at it and the girl said to me and rob that had to remove it. Then we got into a silent van and she started the van to drive us back to the convent. My good friend emma (the one with the funny laugh) reminded her of the snails they removed from the van and asked her to go in reverse so they didn’t run them over. That was nice of emma to think of the snails. But I was  a little tense at this point about lets save the world campaign and said “we might as well airlift the van back to the convent, God forbid we might hit a june bug” then we rode home in a silent van.

So Im off to Wellington NZ this week the capital of NZ. Its on the north island and we get to take a fairy but it’s a long ride so ill let you know if I get thrown overboard because I everyone’s mad about the snail thing.

More Pictures!

Okay!  Here are some more pictures of my trip! 

This is of the Kaikura Penninsula

This is our whole group, just before leaving for our hike

We made it to the water taxi, BARELY on time!  Obviously, I had no razor on this trip.

Climbing trees wherever I go!

Cheering at the race...in our outfits from the dump, and shortly before I flew over my handlebars.

This is one of my classic poses

Another from our hiking trip

I got to go to work with Lisa and check out the whale watch, she took this picture the next day out on one of the cruises but i didnt go on the boat :(

September 15, 2013

So I came in from being out the other day and I was greeted with all kinds of these weird remarks that I didn’t know what they meant. And I was like what are you guys saying? And they were all like well what are you saying? Well needless to say the students here in my program at the convent found my blog. I mean I didn’t say anything mean but I did feel bad because some of them seemed up set but I mean I was filtering so I guess I shouldn’t be too embarrassed  but I was. So more filtering I suppose so people don’t get offended.

                Well this week not much has happened just having class. Class goes from 9 to 12 and then we have the afternoon off and then we have class again from 7 to 9 Monday through Friday. And each week we have a different professor. So professor A comes in week one then professor B comes in week two then professor C comes in week three then professor A comes in for week four then professor B comes in week five. Then professor C comes in week six. So that is how class works in a nutshell.

                Anyway I love sugar. Any form of sugar, syrup, granular, candy, marshmallow, fluff, and brown sugar. Well here I am having a real problem, I don’t feel like im getting my daily doses of needed sugar, but I had to refill the sugar bowl on the tea counter and had to go find the sugar. Well I found a HUGE 55 gallon trashcan in the kitchen, full. Of sugar. It was like heaven in a trashcan. I was so happy. Also there is a huge white Rubbermaid container at the tea station and I hadn’t opened it till this week. Its full of caramelized honey. I was so happy when found these,

                More in the department of food. Tim tams are a two rectangular chocolate cookies on top of each other and dipped in fudge chocolate. They are great so good. I don’t know why I have never had them bc I guess they sell them at target? But they are great. So we did the Tim Tam slam and that happens when you eat each end of the cookie and put one end in hot chocolate then suck the hot coco up into the Oreo and quickly put it in your mouth. Its great. Im salivating just thinking about it.

The Race:

so Kelsey (from messiah sophomore) and Allie (assistant program director) were in a 10k road race here in kiakoura. Well this is quite an event with tons of people. Well like Lincoln a lot of people. definitely not as big as Bangor. So those two are pretty quiet people so us guys (rob steve and i) decided to dress up and embarrass them. We went to the thrift shop, which is actually the dump and filled out bag of terrible clothes for 4 dollars. We didn’t have time to wash them first so we got these shorts that they call “stubbies” here and are wicked short. Shorter than regular short shorts that are high-waisted and look real bad. Wicked bad. And we had hats and tanks, we looked real bad. Theres a pic on facebook if you feel like checking out my upper thigh. Then we were wicked loud cheering on every person as they came into the finish line “lets go red, run red” you know all the good chants.

                Then we were leaving on our bikes and we had one bike with a trailer on the back to carry all our laundry cause we had to go to the laundry mat so were going along biking and still cheering on all the people we are passing and there are still crowds of people in the streets cheering on still finishing runners. Rob lost his hat. He dropped it off the bike onto the ground. Then he came to a complete stop and I was right behind him. So I had to break wicked quick and of course because we are in a different country we are biking on the opposite side of the road and that means the brakes are on the opposite side of the bike. Well I hit the front brakes and went right over the handle bars. Right over. I was so pissed. There were so many people there I was dressed like a loser and then I went right over the front of my bike and it went sliding off the road down the 6 foot ditch. Yup its cool im American.

Storm:

                We had a wicked bad storm that was so windy. Its called a north westerly and blew in at night and rattled our windows so much, and because we are in a 100 year old building the wind pretty much blew through it and it was creepy and the doors were all rattling and slamming. But old Agatha the nun outside my window held strong through the storm. Sadly. Any way the storm lasted about 2 days. At times it was pitch black out at like 3 in the afternoon with rain pelting down and wind gust of no joke up to 85 miles per hour. Windows rattling soooo much. And we lost power for a lil while.

Garden Walk:

                Well Sandy and Kevin Topp gave Leah and I free tickets to the kiakoura garden walk on Sunday afternoon. So I was wicked excited we saw 5 gardens with some pretty cool plants and landscapes. But one house had all these raised gardens and bonsai trees in pots it was wicked cool, but the house was awesome, glass balcony swanky windows and it sat right on top of a hill that went down to south bay and then on the other side of the house a picture perfect view of the mountain range. So if I could pick a house I would live there. But it did have a 8 foot high black fence all the way around it? So it kind of blocked the view but then they put windows in the fence? Its kind of weird but if it didn’t have the fence it would be awesome. We were so sophisticated going out on a garden walk, and I was 1 of 7 men that I saw all afternoon. Then there was a luncheon downtown at the church for all the people after. It was again all gray hair elderly women. But it was wicket funny and I we got a cuppa tee and a wee plate with like 5 tini tini pieces of hobbit food on them. Small sandwiches and mini cookies as well as a tini tini cube of seeds that were stuck together. Im not sure if we were supposed to eat it because it tasted just like birdfood. But then we came back and rob and Steve were not at the nun house so I asked where they were but no one knew. So then me and Leah went to walk around the yard and found the dead hedge hog that lisa had told us was in the drive way so we were like wow a dead hedgehog! (last week we saw a live one and picked it up and played with it) I think Lisa hit it the night before because she was riding in circles really fast around the driveway trying to be funny. Which she is wicked funny. So naturally me and Leah decided to pick it up and put it in Steve my roommates bed. And it smelt so bad. Like 7 days dead bad!  So Steve has 6 bottles of cologne (man perfume for pansies) so we put so much on it so it wouldn’t smell as bad when we put it in his bed. Well this was at around 4 oclock so it was in his bed for a real long time, but leah was nice and put a piece of newspaper under it so it would be as bad. Well I went to bed around 11 and steve and rob came into go to bed around 1 and were wicked loud so those of you that know me know that I love my 10-12 hrs of uninterrupted sleep. I naturally told them to shut up then he found the dead hedgehog and I remembered about it and watched the events unfold. Needless to say I played it off like I didn’t do anything but they wouldn’t touch it so I had to pick it up barehanded and throw it out of our 2cnd story balcony…. Well right outside our window is another building called the chocolate house. So the hedgehog bounced off the roof onto the porch roof where it remained until the next day when me and steve had to climb up and get the stupid thing and burry it. It was pretty bloated and stunk. I think I got the short end of the stick because I had to sleep with a dead hedgehog in our room and then I had to be the one to throw it out then I had to go get it again then burry it. After a very tense day of dodging accusation of who did it (I wasn’t even on their radar) we fessed up at supper and then the flip flops we used to pick up the hedgehog were Lisa’s and she was wicked funny about it. So that’s all I have to say about that. You know what they say payback is a B.

 

 

Character development:

Emma (the cook), loves spiders and will kill anyone who would harm them. That is what she told us. And its true. Anyway I tried to kill a spider at supper time and let me tell you she lost it. She came at me with her mug over her head. And angry face on. And im telling you she dumped her mug of water all over me then as I continued to kill the spider she tried to mug me! She tried to hit me with the mug then proceeded with the Amish tradition and shunned me for the rest of the day.

Leah, well leah and I got to go on a garden walk together! She is a long lost romantic, last week I caught her reading the weddings insert in the newspaper. She is a cow farmer in Washington and has 1000 head of cows to keep track of. Shes got a head full of curls

Drew, he is a little guy who lives just north of lover’s lane. Hes a 17 year old kiwi and wicked funny. Like Lisa he is sarcastic and quick with his wit. He has come over to the convent a couple times and both time we had to watch a movie for class and the movies were so bad I felt bad for him. He surfs snowboards works at the marina and works on cars.

Courtney, (program director) had a birthday and told us about her obsession with this skater guy from Canada when she was younger. But then proceeded to tell us his house caught on fire last year and he had twins and his wifes name and she dances in rowanda?? Then she said she got kicked off an elevator he was on when she was younger. And lied to get into a back stage party where he was… she has a twin sister and they were both obsessed. the guy even had a name for them because he saw them so many times they were “The Hamalton twins”…. Pretty funny stuff

New Zealand fun facts:

Driving down the street you will find half the trucks have these snorkel things on them. They are so the trucks can ford rivers. They go all the way to the top of the roof of the truck. When we went to the tops farm we had to drive over 3 different spots of water with our ghetto vans.

Over here they don’t really build bridges or bug culvers in like they do on dirt roads in Maine. Instead you just drive over them and hope its not too deep. Fingers crossed most of the time.

Birthday parties are over the top here just like at the Richard’s household. We celebrated Courtney (program director) birthday today it was a Curt Browning male figure skater themed party. It was pretty extravagant and we put Agatha (the 300lb nun statue) in the pool and pretended to skate around it and had to do our routine to impress Courtney. Yes we dressed in spandex and threw roses and pretended to do our twirling. I was pretty good but had a hard fall but I got back up to woo Courtney. Kristin (bird fanatic CCSP employee) planned it all and took some funny pictures.

Program Blog

These are the links for my program here in NZ.

This one is for non-Facebook users: http://ccspnzf13.blogspot.co.nz/

This is the Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/?ref=logo#!/pages/Creation-Care-Study-Program-CCSP/199472899343

On the Facebook one make sure you pick the photos and updates for the New Zealand program as there is also one going on right now in Belize. 

PICTURES!

Okay, sorry these aren't in very good order, I'll try to sort out who's in them for you, too.  Just CLICK on any of the pictures to make them all show up full screen size.  The quality isn't great, but you can still see what's happening in my life.

These are my roommates, Rob and Steve.  This was taken after we hiked up a little mountain on the same day we enjoyed some hot tubs.

These next few are of our whole group on the Kaikoura Penninsula Walk

Insanely gorgeous!  This is a NZ Fur Seal.

 This is the view out my bedroom window.  I sleep on the top bunk.  The creepy nun I was talking about is just below where you can see.

This is the rope bridge I was dangling off. 

And the sunrise I slept through, nice that someone took a picture!

The water is VERY different from home, SO blue!

While we were at the Topps Farm hanging out with the 2 day old lambs and enjoying tea I also picked some daffodils with Leah

WARM sunshine!

Sept 10 Update

September 10, 2013

This weekend was the last weekend before classes started and we left the convent Thursday evening and came back to the nun house at supper time on Sunday. Each of us had to plan our own trip to go away for the weekend, two of the girls went to stay in a small cabin at the Tops farm (the sheep farm we had been to earlier) and then the rest of us decided to drive four hours from Kiakoura to Able Tasman to hike (Nz pp call it tramping) for the week end. Well anyway the group all spent the first night at a hut that we were expecting to be a hut but really it was a house with a TV electricity hot showers and wifi so it really wasn’t roughing it. Then the group split in half and the 6 girls got on a water taxi that would take them to the end of the trail and then they would walk back to the car, but the guys, (steve, rob, and I) walked from the car to the end of the trail and would take the water taxi back to the car on the last day.

The Hike:

Well this was a wicked ambitious hike even if we are young and in shape. The trail was in wicked good shape with no rocks or trees to walk over or around, instead it was a nice perfect dirt path  almost as nice as walking on a city side walk. The entire track is sapposed to take 3-5 days of hiking but we thought we could do it in about 2 J it was again wicked pretty but this time we were walking through a temperate rainforest with lots of ferns and mosses and huge tree ferns. EVERYTHING was alive! And there were so many birds it was ridiculous from gannets to sea birds, to hearing. It was on the coast and it was lined with golden sand beaches and huge cliffs and giant hills that ended right on the edge of the ocean.

On the 4 hr drive to this place we passed 4 McDonalds and I was appalled. I couldn’t believe we were just driving by these great restraunts. I was literally going through myself at the thought that we were just passing by without even slowing down to smell the greasy goodness of it. But anyway back to the hike

So I found a really pretty look out spot and the clouds wicked puffy and white and we could see the far off mountains on the other side of the ocean of the north island and there was a sailboat. Then I went to take a picture of this perfect scene and I did and it was one of the best pictures I had taken since I had been here. And I went to take another picture and I saw a red box on the screen that said “no memory card”…. So yeah I brought my camera and no memory card on my three day hike so I don’t have any pictures but the two guys I was with took lots of pictures since I couldn’t.

Well we had to cover 8 hrs of straight hiking in one day to get where our hut was that we were staying at that night. So 8 hrs without stopping of taking pictures so we were booking it through the forest. we kept seeing signs for an upcoming place called Anchorage (not the land of Sarah Palin) we read there was going to be a café there and places to eat and like a small backpackers town but we got there and it was closed for renovations. It was all closed. I was so bitter at this point that I had been walking for 5 hrs and this freaking place was closed. So onward we went and we arrived at the hut at around 6pm but it was still light out and the girls that had started at the other end of the trail had met us there so we played cars and swapped stories with them. We also met a german hiker named carl that was wicked cool as are most germans that I have met (hanna furhop)

What did I eat on this trip? Not much. Raman pb and j and cans of tuna. it was gross. And for any of you that know me well I am not a happy camper if I cant wash my face  Cant take a hot shower Drink coffee …. So all three of these things I couldn’t do. But I managed somehow but I must say when I got back to the convent I had my red stubble on my face and I could wait to wash my face.

The next day the girls al woke up to see the sun rise, but obviously a person like me who require a minimum of 10 hrs of sleep did not wake up. We guys woke up around 9 and made more Raman. And hiked onward. I must say it was great sleeping two nights with the girls because it made rob and steve keep a handle on their evening farts. That day we found a swinging bridge and pretty big waterfall (not as big as katahdin falls) that we played in for a while. And yes Dottie I climbed many things this weekend including to the top of the water fall and to the top of the swinging bridge supports. We then went to this place called the Tonga arches (google Tonga arches able tasmin NZ) we climbed some more cliffs and there were so many of these bugs called sandflies but they never bit me but rob and steve have welts from them. Guess the maine mosquitoes have just toughed me up. We stayed there for about an hr and carved our name into the walls. And swam and stuff. It was a wicked sick place the ocean had carved out these arches in the side of these cliffs and you could walk through them to a room that was 150 feet high and was open to the sky. Just google it I cant describe it.

Later that day we were walking on one of the beaches and could see carl the guys that we met the evening before and we caught up to walk with him for the rest of the day. Crazy thing is he is 19 and has hike 4 of the 9 great walks in NZ and he is just over here in NZ taking a gap year before he goes to college back in Germany. He had some great stories and later shared his cooking stove so we could make Raman and he promised to come visit us in the Nun house in Kiakoura.

Run fast and don’t be late:

We stayed in another hut that evening with carl and had to get up Sunday morning to meet our water taxi that would bring us back to the hut. The ladie who sold us our ticked told us the water taxi would be coming at 10:30 and it was a 40 minute walk from the hut. So we left at 9:30 just so we could have some extra time well we were walking and noticed the tide was high so it was hard to walk on the trail. We get this spot that was walked on the day before that was all beach but so we couldn’t get accrossed because of th tide… we contemplated stealing a tin boat and paddling accrossed. But being good little angles we didn’t steal it instead we set out on a hike back the way we had come that went way out and around the bay. Oh and up a huge hill the size of big rock mountain in maine. I was naturally again very bitter. The signs said it was a 1.5 hr hike to the y at the top of the mountain then another 40 minutes hike down to the other side. We ran it. Up hill. Wind in our face. But we ran and got up the mountain and down the other side in 40 minutes total… a 2 hr hike in 40 minutes. I didn’t even work that hard keeping 20 kids busy in level one swimming lessons. Also there were 2 threes down that we had to find a way around. But we made it.

The water taxi ride was great and we saw more seals and birds and sick coves that our boat barely fit us into and then around other island so it was more of a scenic cruse than just a boat ride back. Then we got back to van, met the girls, smelt bad, really bad of BO, just going to put that out there and I still wanted to wash my face. Also they don’t sell coffee here. Its stupid. You have to get the fancy little feminine latte things. Then after driving past another 2 McDonalds on the way back to the nun house and throwing a legitimate hissy fit because our driver wasn’t stopping at them I convinced them to stop. Bigmac meal and apple pie, need I say more? Steve ate 2 bigmac meals, double cheeseburger mcchicken, fries, apple pie, snack wrap.. yeah he is an American. Rob had about the same but he doesn’t react well to fast food.

Got back and had a spa night for a girl named jenna’s birthday. We Just felt like filling the convent with more estrogen because there isn’t enough in it already. Face mask, lipbalm making, homemade icecream, messages, nail stations…. White robes for everyone. It was her 22 birthday I don’t know her very well but she seemed to like it I think? I don’t really know.

Character development:

Steve, is a junior at messiah studying computer science major. Brought a bottle of cologne on his hike. Pretty cool has a 4:21 mile time,

Rob, is a junior at messiah studying business. He and Steve are already friends from back at messiah and have lived on each others floor.

 

New Zealand fun facts:

The gannet is a bird that doesn’t have hollow bones and can dive from 60 feet into the ocean head first and dive 300 feet deep. Over time the bird gets callouses over its eyes from diving so many times and become blind. Then the bird will die of blindness.

There are houses in able tasman that were in the park with no cars or roads they are just random townships within the park. We walked through a few of these towns and they were like ghost towns, wicked nice houses but not a soul around. In 2000 the houses value was like $30,000. Today the last house that was sold for $860,000. Crazy.

NZ is home to 4 native frogs, and 3 extinct frogs.

NZ is first country to see the sunrise.

Sept. 5, Update....

So we had our class orientation in the afternoon (yawn) and it sounded pretty intense. There was a man who came for lunch and spoke to us about natural gas and how he recycles everything and only brings one bag of trash to the dump each year. this dude was wicked oppionated so I pretty much just tuned him out. But I mean if your against deep sea oil than mabey he is a great guy. But he was pretty opionated and was talking out of his you know what most of the time.

 Later that night a guy came to teach us about the local indigenous people of New Zealand. He taught us a song and a war dance called the haka. Look it up on you tube, the all blacks ruby team does the best one. So im a pretty big ruby fan now and apparently im supposed to cheer for the all blacks. And im pretty good at the haka, but if I had war paint id be better.

Ocean walk:

Then we woke up and went on a hike around the bay for 2 hrs but we had to walk real fast because we had to walk while the tide was out. It was again wicked pretty aqua blue waters, not like the deep blue violent crashing Atlantic in maine. The cliffs are made of sandstone and are a polished white from all the waves they are about 200 feet high above the ocean and the seals are down at the bottom where we were walking. As we walked around the bottom the rocks are all white and polished, it feels like walking on the top of mount katahdin because the rocks move so much under your feet. I found all kinds of different sea sponges and corals and a few seal skulls and lots of dead birds. And these really pretty clam shells named “paua” they are real pretty so look those up on google too. The rule was to stay 10 meters away from the seals but hey im an ignorant American and cant convert that to feet so I got wicked close to the seals and there is like no way around them. We literaly walked for like half an hour amoung an entire colony of seals that were “wolfing” at us and baring their teeth. It was wicked cool but they smelt soo bad. Got a few pics but it was pretty hard.

Then we went to the “maori” peoples tabernacle and presented ourselves as people of piece. We sang them the song we learned the night before and then we had to touch noses. So you put one hand out to shake hands and take the other hand and put it on the back of their head then press your nose to their face without letting your forehead touch theirs. This is pretty hard when you are as tall as me and they are as short as they are. (wicked short, all of them). They had real tall carvings all round the property that looked like giant chickens. Hillary you would love them. Not. They are a very artistic people they are known for their carvings and arrangements of stones. We were not allowed to take pictures here so I cant show you much but the interior of the prayer room was completely carved with extreme detail of fish, birds, gods, and trees. The colors were very bright and the entire building was so cool.

So we got taken out to eat in something called our small groups. The group of kids were broken up into groups of 3 and then assigned a leader so my group is Steve, Rob, Adam (ccsp worker) and me. We went out to a great place with good food! Its right on the street by the ocean and we ate outside with the seagulls. So I got a burger because they don’t feed us much meet at the nunhouse where I stay. So catch this, ln the burger was a fried egg, pickled beets, sautéed onions, and lettuce on a homemade roll. But I laughed because it said it came with fries but it really only came with legit no more than 20 frenchfries on the plate but it was wicked good.

Also we went to the kiakoura dump today. It is really into recycling and after people recycle things that are obvious (cans glass bottles compost wood paper ect) they then take everything that is thought to be garbage and devert 75% of it to be recycled. So that is a crazy amount. That over 75% of the things people throw away is recycled. They also have a thrift shop that sells things for 4 dollars a bag full. Cheep. But it was very organized so it was king of hard work to find anything but Alex Monroe I found a pocket-tee!

Weather: So its early spring time, daffodil season with many flowering trees. It’s pretty most of the time. About 55 degrees most of the time and windy. About the area, its a lot like maine with very plain buildings with not much architecture. Very European with not much attention to detail. People landscape there yards very differently here than in America. They don’t use mulch much and it king of just looks like random overgrown bushes are around peoples houses. ALSO YOU HAVE TO MOW YEAR ROUND! So green grass year round. And its not cold enough to kill geraniums in the winter. So right now a lot of snapdragons are out which is odd because those are a late summer flower at home.

 

Character Development:

Kelsey. Well I finally got her to fall for me! Actually she fell for me two times in about a 30 second span. But it turns out shes just not too good on her feet and slipped on some rocks when we were walking among the seals. She is a sophomore at Messiah College studying nursing just like dad!

Lisa. I already told you about how great Lisa is but unfortunately this week she away for work so the convent is quite a bit quieter. I miss Lisa.

 

New Zealand fun facts:

                The west coast is made of mostly temperate rainforest. And we walked around a mature New Zealand forest with trees that are abour 400 years old as well as tree fusia. Same fusia that we grow at home in hanging plants can grow into tree form here in new Zealand.

                Surprisingly there is only 2 or 3 native plants from NZ that have berries on them. I would have thought there were more because of all the birds but nope.

                You can eat most of plants on the island, but for the most part most are hard they are not very palatable, meaning there isn’t much to each that would be very good if you got lost on the island.

First Update from New Zealand!!!

The plane trip:

So here I am just a quick snapshot of where I am and how the first week went. First things first. Got in the car to go to Boston for my 6 am flight. Had to be at the airport 3 hrs early. So I left my house at about 10 and planned on sleeping in the car for the entire time buuuut my phone was in my bag way behind me and I couldn’t reach it so it kept buzzing every 5 minutes keeping me awake. It was a voicemail from my messiah people Andrew and Christian… thanks for that. Then my flight was 5 hours long to LA and I sat by a woman who was wicked nice but she took up a lot of space so I got real close with the window. Real close. But she was nice and talked talked talked a lot a lot. Then me and Rob a kid who was going to NZ with me, went to the beach at santa montica. We tried to get a cab but the dude didn’t speak English and kindly asked us to get out. But really he was just yelling in Spanish and I was like English please im still in America. Then we chilled on the beach before getting on our 13 hour flight to NZ. Well I sat by two elderly people who were cool but loved to talk so I didn’t sleep much. And the man was a rugby manager and they spent 2 months in America traveling and doing everything even sky diving they said. They were in there 70s so gram If you want to go you might as well. Then for our flight meal I was fed somekind of mystery “chicken” I didn’t really eat much. Then we got to

At the airport we met the rest of our group.(4 more girls) And had to declare everything in our bags. Me not thinking forgot to mention a ton of things so I got through security with a cinnomonbun from mom an apple a fishing pole medication all things that were not supposed to be brought through but they didn’t even stop me. In the airport I made my first judgments of everyone. There are some characters but I won’t right that here.  Then we were picked up in a 15 passenger van that smelled real bad. Mildew bad. And taken to kiakoura NZ to the convent.

Now New Zealand:

It was wicked pretty ride with huge hills with so many sheep. Only 1 story houses that were very simple and real close together. Then we got out a ways and were going up winding roads like you see cars driving on in car commercials. Each farm has hedges that are trimmed perfectly and are about 18 feet high. No idea how they trim them. I know I wouldn’t do it by hand..

 

The convent is nice its in the “country” its all fields and house everywhere in the middle of fields with sheep and cows. So way more neighbors than I have in real life. It on the coast with huge mountains 4 kilometers from the ocean. The convent is NOT heated at all. So its always the same temp as it is outside which is about 50 or 55. It’s cold. Food is great and I havnt had a bad meal we have a great cook named Emma and she rocks. (well she made sushi and that was disgusting but that is it)  But I must say its pretty creepy at times like when you want to go down stairs at night to eat cake and there are no lights.  My room with with the two other dudes rob and steve and we have a porch on our room which is on the second floor and outside our window we have a greart view of the fyffe mountains and over the gardens but the best part is that we have a fire escape! (yeah Dottie roof access). Also outside is a fiberglass nun. She is life size and made of fiberglass and her eyes look right up to our window. Her name is Agatha and she is the most demonized nun I have ever seen. She is creepy.

There are 7 girls here and only 2 other boys that are students. Pretty good ratio I suppose. There are some characters here ill give you that. Im sure some of them have been composting and not flushing toilets for some time now.

So we went to a sheep “farm” at mr and mrs tops farm. It’s a place where cows and sheep roam free and there is a house and he shears them once a year and pretty much hunts wild pigs and deer everyday to keep the flock safe. So he doesn’t really feed or shelter the sheep at all. It was great. You don’t need a hunting license or permit to hunt and there are no seasons for different animals. All the girls said it looked like they should have their own tv show. As Emma (student friend who laughs like she is having an asthma attack) stated “it was lovely and they were the most charming people I have had the pleasure of meeting”

We went to some “natural” hot springs. It was a waterpark I don’t know what anyone was talking about. There were a lot of naked old men. A lot more than I was expecting.

And today had a bbq with some locals. Thought I was talking to a guy named victor, but then realized about an hour later his name was jim. So its pretty hard to understand the accent I spose. And I didn’t think I would hear the word “what” half as many times as I do at home but people here don’t know how to use the word wicked or the word hurt. So people cant really understand me.

My roommate is lactose intolerant and smells real bad when he farts. Which is all the time.

 

New Zealand fun facts:

There are no native mammals but now they have introduced wild goats, elk, possum, weasels, and they even tried to introduce moose. Yes people they brought 5 moose accrcossed the ocean and expected them to live in new Zealand. Obviously the moose died in like 4 months. Shocker.

There are seals, killer whales, many penguins, dolphins, and crayfish. Everywhere and I want to volunteer at the local aquarium because they have penguins there soo that’s cool

 

Character development:

 My favorite person here is a sarcastic kiwe (person native to NZ) named Lisa she is the best. She works as a marketer for the local whale watch. I want to go to work with her sometime before I leave but I havnt asked yet. she says she hates me but I know she loves me. She loves little house on the prairie and nacho libre the movie with jack black.

Our cook named emma is wicked funny! She is teeny tiny and cooks good food and has a great accent buuuut she isn’t single at the moment.